


We'll be Counting Stars

by orphan_account



Series: The Song of Heroes and Monsters [8]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, OCs - Freeform, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 09:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1055039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Continuation of "A Trophy Father's Trophy Son"] Jim has notices Khan's more lenient approach around him and it's just strange...</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll be Counting Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [USS_Entercries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/USS_Entercries/gifts).



> USSENTERCRIES YOU BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THIS IS FOR YOU. I love you 5ever, because 4ever is just not enough and you comment on everything I do...And it's amazing xD
> 
> The song lyrics...They are Khan's P.O.V if you want...I don't know.
> 
> So yes, the negative Khirk thing turned into a positive Khirk thing. Sarah always finds herself a "lets-get-fluffy-clause" ^L^

_“Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep,_   
_Dreaming about the things that we could be._   
_But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,_   
_Said, no more counting dollars,_   
_We'll be counting stars, yeah we'll be counting stars._

_“I see this life like a swinging vine_   
_Swing my heart across the line_   
_And my face is flashing signs_   
_Seek it out and ye shall find._   
_Old, but I'm not that old_   
_Young, but I'm not that bold_   
_I don't think the world is sold_   
_I'm just doing what we're told._   
_I feel something so right_   
_Doing the wrong thing._   
_I feel something so wrong_   
_Doing the right thing._   
_I could lie, couldn’t I, could lie?_   
_Everything that kills me makes me feel alive._

_“Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep,_   
_Dreaming about the things that we could be._   
_But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,_   
_Said, no more counting dollars,_   
_We'll be counting stars [x2]_

_“I feel the love and I feel it burn,_   
_Down this river, every turn,_   
_Hope is a four-letter word,_   
_Make that money, watch it burn._   
_Old, but I'm not that old_   
_Young, but I'm not that bold_   
_I don't think the world is sold_   
_I'm just doing what we're told._   
_I feel something so wrong_   
_Doing the right thing_   
_I could lie, could lie, could lie,_   
_Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly._

_"Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep_   
_Dreaming about the things that we could be_   
_But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,_   
_Said, no more counting dollars_   
_We'll be counting stars [x2]_

_"Take that money_   
_Watch it burn_   
_Sink in the river_   
_The lessons are learnt [x4]_

_Everything that kills me makes feel alive_

_"Lately, I've been, I've been losing sleep_   
_Dreaming about the things that we could be_   
_But baby, I've been, I've been praying hard,_   
_Said, no more counting dollars_   
_We'll be counting stars [x2]_

_"Take that money_   
_Watch it burn_   
_Sink in the river_   
_The lessons are learnt [x4]”_

 

 

Jim couldn’t understand.

Khan, the man who had made his life a living Hell since being captured, was being uncharacteristically nice to him. He wondered vaguely if Daniel had anything to do with it, but it was something that Jim just couldn’t comprehend.

 

 

It started one night, a couple of days after Khan’s promise that still echoed around Jim’s mind. When the doors slid open, Jim couldn’t help but tense up and slink back away from Khan. Fully expecting to be launched at, he braced himself as Khan walked across the room to Jim who was sitting at the edge of the bed.

Jim had been staring vacantly at the wall opposite him, something he eventually trained himself to do whenever he was in one of these ‘situations’. But Khan caught Jim’s chin in his fingers and tilted his head back to look at him. Jim allowed Khan to move his head, trying to relax into the hold, but tensed again when Khan sank down to Jim’s height.

Once Jim decided to glance away from the wall and into Khan’s eyes, he saw something...strange. Emotion.

“I have done wrong by you, James,” Khan muttered, a very different tone to the mocking or powerful ones he always spoke with. Now he was speaking with uncertainty. Jim wanted to speak, but decided against it, letting Khan continue. “I want no more war between us, only peace.”

Khan let go of Jim’s chin and rose to his full height. “I hope to have you willingly one day.”

Before Khan could exit out of the doors, Jim spoke with a shaky voice, “What if I never come to you willingly?” he asked, slightly apprehensive about the augment’s answer.

Khan turned his head slightly and said softly, “Then I will wait.”

 

 

The following weeks were spent like that. Khan would make gentle gestures towards Jim, in some hope of gaining the man’s trust. While Jim vowed that he wouldn’t, he couldn’t bring himself to hate the man anymore. He spent more time than he’d like to admit contemplating about the entire situation, questions spiralling around his head. Why was he suddenly being nice after years of torture? Did Daniel have anything to do with it? Probably, Jim thought. He felt proud in a way; despite being young, Daniel had a surprising amount of authority in the ship, even over his own father.

One night Jim was flicking through the pages of a worn book for the hundredth time since being kept here, when he heard the doors slide open. Khan stood at the doors, inclining his head to the side. “Walk with me?” he asked.

Jim put the book down slowly and walked cautiously over to Khan. He had never been outside this room, except when he was carrying Daniel. Then he was taken down to the augments down at the med-bay, or they were brought to him. Other than that, he was never outside his own room.

Jim walked beside Khan, looking around at the darkened walls of the ship’s corridors, the bleak lights on the ceiling not shedding much light. Jim’s breathing picked up pace when he saw the doors in front of the pair open to reveal the bridge of the Vengeance. This was the last place he wanted to be. It was full of horrible memories of pain and suffering, and it made Jim feel physically weak.

“Easy,” Khan said gently, letting him be a support for the blond to lean on. “I know this place haunts you-”  
“-Why did you bring me here then?” Jim seethed, glaring as best he could at Khan without drawing the attention of the other augments bustling around on the bridge.  
“I want to show you that,” Khan nodded to Daniel standing next to the captain’s chair; arms behind his back, eyes locked on the screens infront of him. He looked like Spock, Jim thought; a thought that brought a vague smile to his face.  
“He’s only a boy, yet our child has the skills and discipline to run this ship by himself,” Khan said, looking down at the blond.

Jim almost keened over with the shock. Did he hear Khan right, or were the bad memories of the bridge really getting to him? Jim met Khan’s eyes. “ _Our_ child?” he asked. “Whatever happened to _your_ child?”  
“I told you before James,” Khan took Jim’s arm and led him out of the bridge and back down the corridor. “I want there to be no wars between us; even the war over our own flesh and blood.”

 

 

Walking with Khan around the ship had become a normal event for Jim as time went on. He would stick closely to the taller man as they strolled down corridors, Khan checking on his crew. Sometimes when they were passing the training rooms, Jim got a chance to glance at Daniel in the chrome-walled cell, dealing easy blows to other augments that Jim presumed were his trainers. “He’s just like you,” Jim said absent-mindedly one day, not realising what he said until the words left his mouth.  
“I suppose he is,” Khan agreed, smirking at the flash of panic on Jim’s face.

He had made it clear to Jim: no more fighting. It was strange, but Jim found it nice in a weird sort of way. It was nice not to be worrying about what he used to worry about. While he still wasn’t truly happy about being kept on the Vengeance, he felt somewhat safer.

 

 

It was nearly four months since Khan and Jim’s ‘truce’ when Jim walked onto the bridge of the Vengeance. He had developed a habit of wandering around the ship by himself, something which Khan had no problems with. The augments didn’t mind either; in fact, they often greeted the man as they patrolled the corridors as if they hadn’t spent the last few years keeping the blond held hostage.

Jim spotted Khan sitting in the captain’s chair, a strange sight at first for him, but one that he got used to. The augment’s attention was torn between his helmsman Markus listing off coordinates of a nearby planetary system, and the conversation he was having with Daniel about something to do with the shielding systems not being fully operational.

Once Khan saw Jim walking across the bridge towards him, he nodded at Markus to set a course and told Daniel to sort the shields out with the engineers. Once the eyes of Khan’s crew weren’t on him, Jim walked over to Khan lounging in the captain’s chair before tilting the augment’s head up with his finger and kissing him.

Khan quickly pulled Jim onto his lap, wrapping his arms around the blond. “My request still stands, Jim,” he whispered loud enough for them to hear.

Jim looked at Khan questionably until he remembered what he told him months beforehand; “ _I hope to have you willingly one day_.”  
Khan noticed the absence in Jim’s eyes, and then continued, “I will not force myself upon you James. If you do not want to, then I will wait.”  
“You did once upon a time,” Jim said back, tracing the side of Khan’s face with his hand.  
“And I am so sorry for what I did,” he replied, catching Jim’s hand. “I will not do it again.”

Jim looked away for a second, looking across the busy bridge of the Vengeance then back to Khan. “I want to.”

 

 

Jim couldn’t take his eyes off Khan at the other side of the biobed in the white-tiled room. He had been here before, back when Daniel was born then promptly taken away from him. It was one of the worst moments in his life when he wished that his breaking heart would literally break so he wouldn’t have to endure anymore of this. But he was here now under different circumstances; Khan was beside him keeping him from looking at the medics stitching his stomach back together. Desperate to look sideways, he could make-do with the wide smile Khan was giving him. “Thank you,” he whispered before he let Jim look.

Finally, he thought.

One of the nurses, Laurel, Jim remembered came over to the pair with a small squirming bundle. “Healthy and responding well, Captain,” she said, handing the tiny body over to Jim’s shaky out-stretched arms.

Khan wrapped one on his arms over Jim’s, offering Jim support. The doctors soon left the room letting the pair have privacy, with one of them being ordered by Khan to get Daniel from the training rooms.

Khan looked down at the blonde he was sitting next to; completely consumed in thought, staring down at the tiny girl in his arms. “She’s beautiful,” he heard him say.  
“She is,” he had to agree, gently kissing the top of Jim’s head. “Have you thought about any names?”

Jim ran his finger over the girl’s soft cheek, smiling how her tiny arms flailed slightly beneath the blankets. “Jodi...Jodi Brooke?” he looked up to Khan.  
The augment nodded. “Jodi Brooke Singh?”  
“I thought this was _our_ child?-”  
“-She is.”  
A few minutes of staring blankly at the augment before going wide eyed. “You want me to-”  
“-You don’t have to.”  
“Yes,” he said, wrapping his free hand around Khan’s head and pulling him down into a kiss.

When the pulled apart, it was at the sound of the doors sliding open and Daniel racing through, slightly out of breath. “Did you run all the way here?” Khan asked smirking.  
“My little sister was just born, of course I ran all of the way here,” he answered, his gaze shifting from his father to the small bundle in his dad’s arms. “Is that her?”  
Jim nodded, already handing the small girl over to Daniel, then leaning back into the biobed and sighing deeply.

“James?” Khan asked, looking down at the blond spiralling into sleep.  
“Hmm?”  
“Let him sleep, father,” Daniel said, still rocking Jodi gently in his arms.

Khan smiled and brushed some of Jim’s hair away from his sweat-covered forehead, then kissing him gently. “I’ll be outside with Laurel if you want me,” he said, not only to Daniel but to Jim who he knew, despite Jim’s slack state, was still very much awake.  
Daniel nodded his father away until the doors closed behind him. “He’s gone now.”  
Jim opened his eyes and rolled his head to the side to face Daniel. He smiled at the sight of him with his new baby sister and outstretched a hand to him. Daniel took it while cradling Jodi in the crook of his other arm.

“Thank you, Danny.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank God for Daniel...
> 
> Song; OneRepublic's "Counting Stars", aka my new Khirk shipping song.


End file.
